Another Attack on Education, Labor and Adjuncts

Inside Higher Ed‘s Scott Jaschik has an alarming story today, “The Shirley Sherrods of Academe?” Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbartis at it again, this time distorting videos in the classes of two teachers of labor history at the University of Missouri.  Breitbartis edited video posted to the course’s online site (accessed without permission) so that it [...]

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The Young Turks put PA education cuts front and center

You can’t understate the critical importance of doing your research.  Now, if you cut funds to education and students don’t learn how to do critical research, then they’ll never be able to do what The Young Turks do here:

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EDUSolidarity

VERY COOL project.  I wish I had come across this sooner.  On Tuesday, March 22nd, teachers posted their stories under the topic “Why Teachers Like Us Support Unions.”  Just some great stuff. EDUSolidarity.

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TODAY @ KU: Protest Gov. Corbett’s Cuts to Higher Ed!

Come out and join with members of the Kutztown University community to protest Gov. Corbett’s cuts against Higher Education.  Governor Corbett’s cuts seek to gut public higher education in Pennsylvania.  Corbett’s current budget would: Cut State appropriation to PASSHE by 50% Kutztown University alone would see a $26 million dollar cut in it’s budget At [...]

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PASSHE memo regarding temporary faculty

This past December, APSCUF won a significant arbitration concerning the conversion of temporary faculty into tenure-track lines.  The case had to do with two temporary faculty members at California University who had their continuous full-time service broken in order to prevent those faculty members being converted into tenure-track positions as spelled out in Article 11.G [...]

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Bob Samuels: Saving Universities Through the Unionization of the Untenurable

As most if not all of you know, this is a contract negotiations year for APSCUF–the union that represents the faculty of the 14 PA State System of Higher Education universities.  It is no secret that we expect these negotiations to be difficult given the current economic crisis and the unwillingness of either the State [...]

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laboring in higher ed: new AAUP report

As APSCUF enters into a contract negotiation year, this report recently issued from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) should be mandatory reading.  The report discusses the all-but-collapse of the tenure system, the out-of-control rise in contingent faculty, and ways to stabilize higher education.  APSCUF’s contract makes the report–specifically Article 11 Sec. G and [...]

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Higher education advertised job openings jump 47 percent | Pennsylvania Business Central

This is an interesting article from the on-line site, Pennsylvania Business Central.  There’s no “gotcha” in this article, but it provides some useful data for our current discussion and an analysis of trends in higher ed in PA. Higher education advertised job openings jump 47 percent  | Pennsylvania Business Central.

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News: An Invitation to Unionize – Inside Higher Ed

I know that this issue does not have an immediate impact on our conditions at Kutztown or faculty at PASSHE universities, but it is no less than momentous in the struggles of graduate teaching assistants at private universities. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chair, Wilma Liebman, announced this week that unions could expect the NLRB [...]

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student faculty meeting on retrenchment

Some of you may have already heard about this meeting, but I want to make sure that everyone knows.  On Tuesday, March 30th from 4-6pm there will be a Student-Faculty meeting in the Academic Forum to discuss the administration’s plans for retrenchment:  Here’s the details: A STUDENT-FACULTY Meeting To Discuss the Administration’s Plans for Program Elimination and [...]

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we’re on 48 hour news cycle: Cevallos sends email

A full two days after Kutztown University’s administration shared its plans to begin a process of retrenchment–cutting programs, departments, and faculty and staff–university President Cevallos finally sent an email to faculty with the lackluster title “Message from President regarding KU budget.“ Most of the email rehearses the administration’s claims about declining state revenue, increasing costs, [...]

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in the media

APSCUF-KU held a joint Conference on Labor in Higher Education in Harrisburg on October 15-17th.  Here’s some stuff that came out of the conference: Here’s me being interviewed by Marc Bousquet for AAUP Online.  The interview focused on Article 11 of our contract–conversion of temporary faculty members/lines to tenure-track. Bousquet’s full post for AAUP Online, [...]

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